John (Jack) S. Belrose, VE3CV/VE3CVV became a silent key September 19th, 2024 in his 98th year. He was well known to the long time radio amateurs of the Ottawa area.

Jack grew up in Alberta and British Columbia and became a very accomplished radio scientist. His education and employment resumé at CRC are legendary.

• 1950 – University of British Columbia – Graduated with BASc (Electrical Engineering) followed by a Masters Degree the year after.
• 1951 – 1997 – Employed by Communications Research Centre (Shirley’s Bay) known originally as the Defence Research Telecommunications Centre. He retired as Radioscientist Emeritus there and continued doing personal research in the field of computational electromagnetic (antenna and near field problems) for several years.
• Life Senior Member IEEE Antennas & Propagation Society.

In his own words, he wrote in 2002 about his remembrances of his career, see: Friends of CRC

His amateur radio history is as follows:

• 1949 – First licensed as VE7QH in Vancouver, B.C.
• 1951 – VE3BLW when he moved to Ottawa, Ontario
• 1958 – VE2CV when he moved to Aylmer, Quebec
• 2009 – VE3CVV when he moved back to Ottawa but maintained his Quebec call sign VE2CV

Jack sponsored the call sign VY9CRC during his career at the Communications Research Centre. He also sponsored the first amateur radio repeater in the area with an automatic phone patch, VE2KPG located at Camp Fortune. Jack published many articles in amateur radio magazines including QST, QEX, Ham Radio, Communications Quarterly and the ARRL Antenna Compendium.

Jack served as a Director and Technical Editor of the Radio Club of America. There, he was responsible for publishing the Platinum Jubilee yearbook of the Club which included a co-authored paper entitled “Amateur Radio Contributions to the Art and Science of Communications – Revisited”. In 2007, the Radio Club of America awarded Jack, along with Walter Cronkite (KB2GSD - SK), the RCA Armstrong Medal for contributions to the art and science of communications.

Jack was a life member of the Quarter Century Wireless Association and a member of Ottawa local Chapter 70 where, at the February 2010 meeting, he gave a presentation on “Electric-Magnetic Electrically Small Antennas”. Locally as well, Jack served faithfully as the Secretary and Treasurer of the Saint Lawrence Repeater Council where he always had good words about a his friend Terry Daniels, a fellow member of the Radio Club of America and President and founder of Daniels Electronics, the B.C. company that made the MT2 repeater used at VE2KPG.

Jack’s obituary is posted at: John "Jack" Skelton (VE2CV) Belrose | Obituary | Ottawa Citizen (remembering.ca)

Author: Norm VE3LC

Appears in: Rambler Vol 67, Issue 2